The iPad isn't the future of computing

Keyboarding is, let's face it, a skill. And not a greatly relevant skill in the next world hegemon, China, nor for the snapchatting rugrats nipping at our heels. So I have no doubt that traditional laptops will decline and pen computing make an amazing comeback...

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

But the slow and messy text by pen is already dead, the keyboard is long past winning.

Pens on computers are a niche item, they will only ever be a niche item. Primarily aimed at art, not text entry.

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

1.5 billion native writers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean would like to get a word in here. While the populations of the US and the EU have dominated the direction of computing, at only a billion people, they're pretty seriously outnumbered by a population that is rapidly gaining on them in terms of income and influence.

What's more, for virtually every population, dictation is 3x faster than typing. The only holdup is social friction against using it more.

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

1.5 billion native writers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean would like to get a word in here. While the populations of the US and the EU have dominated the direction of computing, at only a billion people, they're pretty seriously outnumbered by a population that is rapidly gaining on them in terms of income and influence.

You think they are entering text through elaborate calligraphy? Keyboarding is what everyone is doing.

Yes, computer dictation is now faster than typing, but social factors aren't going away. How would a bunch of people dictating, work in today's open office environment? Could you imagine people on transit speaking all their private chat messages aloud for everyone to hear them. Having you been typing or dictating your posts? I am home alone and still typing...

You think they are entering text through elaborate calligraphy? Keyboarding is what everyone is doing.

While I was learning Mandarin I was doing both. The calligraphy isn't 'elaborate', its actually what you read. It's only elaborate to someone with a western viewpoint. And you do need to learn to write it properly. I also entered using simplified Cangjie, but looking at your links one thing you should note is that there's isn't a standard in there - in fact there are dozens of competing methods, suggesting that all of them suck, just in different ways (speed, complexity, etc.) Calligraphy in a good recognition system is pretty quick - in many ways faster than writing in english because of the compactness of the characters.

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Yes, computer dictation is now faster than typing, but social factors aren't going away. How would a bunch of people dictating, work in today's open office environment? Could you imagine people on transit speaking all their private chat messages aloud for everyone to hear them. Having you been typing or dictating your posts? I am home alone and still typing...

Most computing isn't done in an open office environment. Most computing is done on phones. There are more iPhones in use today than there are PCs. Toss Android on top of that, and it's wildly higher. I do most of my commenting here on Ars on my iPad - with the on-screen keyboard (and if you poke around you'll find I tend to be long-winded). So a dedicated physical keyboard isn't even a constraint to typing for data entry.

You think they are entering text through elaborate calligraphy? Keyboarding is what everyone is doing.

While I was learning Mandarin I was doing both. The calligraphy isn't 'elaborate', its actually what you read. It's only elaborate to someone with a western viewpoint. And you do need to learn to write it properly. I also entered using simplified Cangjie, but looking at your links one thing you should note is that there's isn't a standard in there - in fact there are dozens of competing methods, suggesting that all of them suck, just in different ways (speed, complexity, etc.) Calligraphy in a good recognition system is pretty quick - in many ways faster than writing in english because of the compactness of the characters.

You did it while learning Mandarin. So what?

That doesn't make it the predominate way to enter text into computers. It is pretty clear that it isn't, and that written calligraphy is also fading in the computer age and the Chinese government is propping it up. The joys of Authoritarian communist government enforcing archaic writing style...http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2014-09 ... 8390_2.htm

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In this era of computerization, it is not possible for all the people to write Chinese characters equally well. Given their increased exposure to (rather dependence on) electronic gadgets, even highly educated people could fumble with or forget some Chinese characters. So the education authorities should introduce a mandatory Chinese handwriting course for students to help carry forward a heritage that has been passed from one generation to another.

Most computing isn't done in an open office environment. Most computing is done on phones. There are more iPhones in use today than there are PCs. Toss Android on top of that, and it's wildly higher. I do most of my commenting here on Ars on my iPad - with the on-screen keyboard (and if you poke around you'll find I tend to be long-winded). So a dedicated physical keyboard isn't even a constraint to typing for data entry.

You think they are entering text through elaborate calligraphy? Keyboarding is what everyone is doing.

While I was learning Mandarin I was doing both. The calligraphy isn't 'elaborate', its actually what you read. It's only elaborate to someone with a western viewpoint. And you do need to learn to write it properly. I also entered using simplified Cangjie, but looking at your links one thing you should note is that there's isn't a standard in there - in fact there are dozens of competing methods, suggesting that all of them suck, just in different ways (speed, complexity, etc.) Calligraphy in a good recognition system is pretty quick - in many ways faster than writing in english because of the compactness of the characters.

You did it while learning Mandarin. So what?

That doesn't make it the predominate way to enter text into computers. It is pretty clear that it isn't, and that written calligraphy is also fading in the computer age and the Chinese government is propping it up. The joys of Authoritarian communist government enforcing archaic writing style...http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2014-09 ... 8390_2.htm

Quote:

In this era of computerization, it is not possible for all the people to write Chinese characters equally well. Given their increased exposure to (rather dependence on) electronic gadgets, even highly educated people could fumble with or forget some Chinese characters. So the education authorities should introduce a mandatory Chinese handwriting course for students to help carry forward a heritage that has been passed from one generation to another.

Most computing isn't done in an open office environment. Most computing is done on phones. There are more iPhones in use today than there are PCs. Toss Android on top of that, and it's wildly higher. I do most of my commenting here on Ars on my iPad - with the on-screen keyboard (and if you poke around you'll find I tend to be long-winded). So a dedicated physical keyboard isn't even a constraint to typing for data entry.

Keyboard entry is king. Far from the trend reversing, the minority still doing text entry with pen is shrinking, not growing.

Actually written input for kanji is pretty much alive https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscrip ... 07100?mt=8 and even more important for Android. Last week I was in HK on business trip and saw a young man write by stylus the characters straight into his phone (looked like Android)

Actually written input for kanji is pretty much alive https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscrip ... 07100?mt=8 and even more important for Android. Last week I was in HK on business trip and saw a young man write by stylus the characters straight into his phone (looked like Android)

Doing a quick bit of research shows the dominant Chinese entry systems are phonetic based typed (Pinyin for mainland and different equivalents in Taiwan/Hong Kong). Pinyin is taught in mainland China schools from a young age. In fact Pinyin usage is holding back children's Chinese reading ability:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549123/

The next largest (but minority) category is Typed visual-shape representation are used by a smaller number because they are more work to learn. But can yield higher performance if worked at.

But free form character recognition is a tiny niche usage, barely mentioned. This is NOT going to swing the world away from keyboards to pens for input, it barely even registers in China.

I consider this nonsensical rat hole about the ascendancy of Pen computing closed.

I'd like to get back to discussing how the new iPad lineup and iOS 11 change landscape compared to when the original post was made.

1.5 billion native writers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean would like to get a word in here. While the populations of the US and the EU have dominated the direction of computing, at only a billion people, they're pretty seriously outnumbered by a population that is rapidly gaining on them in terms of income and influence.

So we're counting people still using what's quickly becoming a primitive form of textual representation as proof that it's still relevant? Is that how we do it? That's not going to be an advantage, that's going to be an anchor. Dynamically reconfigurable keyboards will likely ameliorate that. But sloooow is in understatement when talking about "handwriting" vs key entry.

It's called nostalgia, not practicality. Pen input of text is also imprecise and impacts resources.

The 2-billion or whatever number of people employing "Asian text input by stylus" that johnsonwax is throwing around isn't proof that it's growing or preferred, it's proof that it's "familiar". It's certainly not efficient given the seemingly infinite variants. Having infinite variants and complexity is the complete opposite of simple and efficient.

Actually written input for kanji is pretty much alive https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscrip ... 07100?mt=8 and even more important for Android. Last week I was in HK on business trip and saw a young man write by stylus the characters straight into his phone (looked like Android)

Doing a quick bit of research shows the dominant Chinese entry systems are phonetic based typed (Pinyin for mainland and different equivalents in Taiwan/Hong Kong). Pinyin is taught in mainland China schools from a young age. In fact Pinyin usage is holding back children's Chinese reading ability:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549123/

The next largest (but minority) category is Typed visual-shape representation are used by a smaller number because they are more work to learn. But can yield higher performance if worked at.

But free form character recognition is a tiny niche usage, barely mentioned. This is NOT going to swing the world away from keyboards to pens for input, it barely even registers in China.

I consider this nonsensical rat hole about the ascendancy of Pen computing closed.

I'd like to get back to discussing how the new iPad lineup and iOS 11 change landscape compared to when the original post was made.

I think that you don't understand what you are talking about. Pinyin is just a input system, its official romanization system for kanjis in China. . That means that you can use a latin keyboard for Kanji input. The same principle applies for Japanese input, just the name of the system is different. Writing a character by using Pinyin involves three steps: you input roman letters, choose an appropriate character and input it. However, with stylus you can just write the letter. If the character recognition is good, then you can save time just by writing the character directly and saving time. Phonetic input is not a panacea: many Asian languages use a same sound for different kanjis. For example, ma in Chinese may mean mother or horse, or something else. Kei in Japanese may mean tens of different characters or their combinations. Moreover, sometimes a character may have different pronunciations. For example, a character for a country, 国, may sound as "koku", "kuni", "kuna" and "ko" and this is only in Japanese, but in Chinese it will sound differently in even more ways like Mandarin(Standard)(Pinyin): guó (guo)(Zhuyin): ㄍㄨㄛˊ(Chengdu, SP): gueCantonese (Jyutping): gwokGan (Wiktionary): guetHakka (Sixian, PFS): koetJin (Wiktionary): guehMin Dong (BUC): guókMin Nan (POJ): kokWu (Wiktionary): koq (T4)Xiang (Wiktionary): gueDialectal data▼Middle Chinese: /kwək̚/▼Old Chinese▼(Baxter-Sagart): /*[C.q]ʷˤək/(Zhengzhang): /*kʷɯːɡ/

So if you think Phonetic input is more precise for East Asian languages, you just don't know what you are talking about.

It's called nostalgia, not practicality. Pen input of text is also imprecise and impacts resources.

The 2-billion or whatever number of people employing "Asian text input by stylus" that johnsonwax is throwing around isn't proof that it's growing or preferred, it's proof that it's "familiar". It's certainly not efficient given the seemingly infinite variants. Having infinite variants and complexity is the complete opposite of simple and efficient.

On top of that it isn't even remotely true. It's clear those 2 billion are using mostly Pinyin, not stylus input.

Actually written input for kanji is pretty much alive https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myscrip ... 07100?mt=8 and even more important for Android. Last week I was in HK on business trip and saw a young man write by stylus the characters straight into his phone (looked like Android)

Doing a quick bit of research shows the dominant Chinese entry systems are phonetic based typed (Pinyin for mainland and different equivalents in Taiwan/Hong Kong). Pinyin is taught in mainland China schools from a young age. In fact Pinyin usage is holding back children's Chinese reading ability:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3549123/

The next largest (but minority) category is Typed visual-shape representation are used by a smaller number because they are more work to learn. But can yield higher performance if worked at.

But free form character recognition is a tiny niche usage, barely mentioned. This is NOT going to swing the world away from keyboards to pens for input, it barely even registers in China.

I consider this nonsensical rat hole about the ascendancy of Pen computing closed.

I'd like to get back to discussing how the new iPad lineup and iOS 11 change landscape compared to when the original post was made.

I think that you don't understand what you are talking about. Pinyin is just a input system, its official romanization system for kanjis in China. (snip)So if you think Phonetic input is more precise for East Asian languages, you just don't know what you are talking about.

We are discussing input systems. I never said it was more precise. I said it was the most used because it is taught from a young age. I read multiple links searching for what is used, and the overwhelming answer was Pinyin. Not one person responding to similar questions, used character recognition, they thought maybe some old people did that...

The need for those folks is: "we need to be able to communicate because we've been doing it this way for thousands of years and there's so many variants we simply do not know how to simplify it to make it more efficient nor can any of us agree".

The English Alphabet has been around for what a thousand of so years? Modern version just over 450 years? What does that tell you?

Chinese/Asian 3000+ ??

I'm not a linguist but was there ever an attempt to unify, refine and simplify Asiatic symbols or move them along to something a lot less complicated? With the possibility to have infinite variants, the whole entire process seems to have been constantly *additive*.

The need for those folks is: "we need to be able to communicate because we've been doing it this way for thousands of years and there's so many variants we simply do not know how to simplify it to make it more efficient nor can any of us agree".

The English Alphabet has been around for what a thousand of so years? Modern version just over 450 years? What does that tell you?

Chinese/Asian 3000+ ??

I'm not a linguist but was there ever an attempt to unify, refine and simplify Asiatic symbols or move them along to something a lot less complicated? With the possibility to have infinite variants, the whole entire process seems to have been constantly *additive*.

There is not a single Chinese/Asian system, but there are at least a dozen of Chinese languages (which all sound different; some say dialects); and at least four different sets of Chinese characters (Modern Continental or simplified, traditional or Hong Kong and Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean). Japanese has in addition 3 more alphabets, commonly called hiragana, katakana, romaji, all of which can be used mixed, alone or in some sort of combination with Chinese characters. There was an attempt to solve the issue of division between traditional and simplified characters which was unsuccessful. Korean also uses Kanji characters while using its own alphabet Hangul which can be also mixed with Kanjis if necessary. It is such a mess all around there, so no one would ever try to change the situation unless there was a war, revolution or some kind of social urgency, like Meiji reform in Japan, a civil war in China in 1949, or Korean war of 1950s.

I give anyone huge amounts of credit for learning to communicate on that level with all that complexity and variation.

English (American colloquial English) is way, way harder than any single Asian language. It has countless borrow words, exceptions upon exceptions, new parts of speech being invented, etc. It's hard for even a native speaker to keep up with the variations. The millennial generation seems to be accelerating this too.

Disclaimer: I speak Cantonese Chinese at native level and Japanese at business level. Read and write all of them.

It's not possible to further simplify most Asian languages using alphabets - it's simply impossible.

Chinese (in all dialects) and Japanese have many words where the sound is the same but has different meanings. Getting rid of hanzi/kanji actually makes understanding the language harder, not easier. So you are trading speed of input for accuracy of the content, which is not really desirable with dubious advantages (ie if it takes less time to write but more time to clarify the meaning of the content, are you really being more efficient? The outcome may very well be net zero or worse). In fact preciously for this reason even some academics in mainland China are arguing to abandon Simplified Chinese and go back to Traditional Chinese (Simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy rates in China in the 50s amongst poor farmers by making the writing system easier, but now over simplification is causing other issues and one could argue that literacy rate is no longer such a big issue).

For input in everyday I actually use a mix of BOTH phonetic based input and handwriting - this is because sometimes I know the phonetic but can't remember the exact writing, other times it's the exact opposite where I know the writing and not the proper phonetic combination (this is for both Chinese and Japanese). You cannot get rid of one for the other, both methods of input will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.

Also for Chinese input in Hong Kong the official preferred IME is input via radicals (breaking up hanzi into components) - which is neither phonetics nor is handwriting, and doesn't map to the English alphabet. You can type it very quickly via keyboard just like using alphabets, and it removes the ambiguity of a pure phonetics based input. But the learning curve is quite high.

And finally for those Westerners who thinks hanzi/kanji is inefficient - it's not, it's just different. A challenge I always pose to doubters is to ask who can convey more content in a Twitter post (ie 140 characters). Chinese/Japanese will ALWAYS beat English in such a test.

Disclaimer: I speak Cantonese Chinese at native level and Japanese at business level. Read and write all of them.

It's not possible to further simplify most Asian languages using alphabets - it's simply impossible.

Chinese (in all dialects) and Japanese have many words where the sound is the same but has different meanings. Getting rid of hanzi/kanji actually makes understanding the language harder, not easier. So you are trading speed of input for accuracy of the content, which is not really desirable with dubious advantages (ie if it takes less time to write but more time to clarify the meaning of the content, are you really being more efficient? The outcome may very well be net zero or worse). In fact preciously for this reason even some academics in mainland China are arguing to abandon Simplified Chinese and go back to Traditional Chinese (Simplified Chinese was created to increase literacy rates in China in the 50s amongst poor farmers by making the writing system easier, but now over simplification is causing other issues and one could argue that literacy rate is no longer such a big issue).

For input in everyday I actually use a mix of BOTH phonetic based input and handwriting - this is because sometimes I know the phonetic but can't remember the exact writing, other times it's the exact opposite where I know the writing and not the proper phonetic combination (this is for both Chinese and Japanese). You cannot get rid of one for the other, both methods of input will continue to exist for the foreseeable future.

Also for Chinese input in Hong Kong the official preferred IME is input via radicals (breaking up hanzi into components) - which is neither phonetics nor is handwriting, and doesn't map to the English alphabet. You can type it very quickly via keyboard just like using alphabets, and it removes the ambiguity of a pure phonetics based input. But the learning curve is quite high.

And finally for those Westerners who thinks hanzi/kanji is inefficient - it's not, it's just different. A challenge I always pose to doubters is to ask who can convey more content in a Twitter post (ie 140 characters). Chinese/Japanese will ALWAYS beat English in such a test.

Keyboard input remains crucial for most of IMEs- even more so for radical based input systems. That's the conclusion I guess.

Keyboard input remains crucial for most of IMEs- even more so for radical based input systems. That's the conclusion I guess.

A couple of decades ago most Asian people will buy a tiny pen tablet accessory for handwriting input, it was a boom market. However when capacitive touch screen become a thing and smartphone becoming the de facto personal computing device it killed that market because using your stubby finger to scribble hanzi/kanji was good enough (which also indirectly led to Asians preferring phablets as it provides a bigger drawing area for handwriting input at the bottom of the screen). Also regarding IME there's a very apparent generation gap - Gen Xers and older whom are mostly computer illiterate don't know how to use a keyboard based IME (whether it is phonetic or radical) and will use handwriting or now voice dictation. Perhaps half of the Gen Yers are also in this group. Combined together it's a VERY large group of people that will still want to use handwriting. The only issue is that they don't need an extra stylus because using the pointing device on their hand - the index finger - is good enough in most instances.

That said, I still think pen/inking input has a huge future because of STEM. As something like writing mathematical formulas with a pen is vastly superior to using a keyboard, and that applies to every country and culture.

The need for those folks is: "we need to be able to communicate because we've been doing it this way for thousands of years and there's so many variants we simply do not know how to simplify it to make it more efficient nor can any of us agree".

The English Alphabet has been around for what a thousand of so years? Modern version just over 450 years? What does that tell you?

FWIW, English was originally written in runic, not the English alphabet we have today. The alphabet we have today is the Latin alphabet, and it is about 2500 years old:

Keyboarding is, let's face it, a skill. And not a greatly relevant skill in the next world hegemon, China, nor for the snapchatting rugrats nipping at our heels. So I have no doubt that traditional laptops will decline and pen computing make an amazing comeback...

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

But the slow and messy text by pen is already dead, the keyboard is long past winning.

Pens on computers are a niche item, they will only ever be a niche item. Primarily aimed at art, not text entry.

These things change. I'd be happy to be wrong, but you can't explain away the number of people in asia and the difficulty of typing up asian alphabets. You can't explain away the popularity of emoji, which isn't exactly keyboard based, and you're bringing up points that the ruling, moneyed class would make, because that's your experience. There's very little reason for most of humanity to worry about fast text entry and lots of reason they still use voice and increasingly video chat.

Keyboarding is, let's face it, a skill. And not a greatly relevant skill in the next world hegemon, China, nor for the snapchatting rugrats nipping at our heels. So I have no doubt that traditional laptops will decline and pen computing make an amazing comeback...

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

But the slow and messy text by pen is already dead, the keyboard is long past winning.

Pens on computers are a niche item, they will only ever be a niche item. Primarily aimed at art, not text entry.

These things change. I'd be happy to be wrong, but you can't explain away the number of people in asia and the difficulty of typing up asian alphabets. You can't explain away the popularity of emoji, which isn't exactly keyboard based, and you're bringing up points that the ruling, moneyed class would make, because that's your experience. There's very little reason for most of humanity to worry about fast text entry and lots of reason they still use voice and increasingly video chat.

You are wrong. So you must be happy.

Kids in Mainland China learn Pinyin starting in primary school. It is by far the dominant way they enter information into computers in China (other Asian jurisdictions have similar phonetic based systems). I have linked studies and reports from China, that show this is so much the case, that the current generation of young people is actually losing the ability to properly write the traditional Chinese alphabet. There is nothing for me to "explain away". You based your entire argument on your faulty assumption about how things are done, not on how things are actually done. Faulty assumptions equal meaningless conclusion. Checkout the information on Mainstream and non Mainstream methods:https://books.google.ca/books?id=l-P0_8 ... mainstream

When computers were rare the dominant entry system was a typing system based on Stroke/Form/Ideographic input. But this required a lot of training, so relegated to professional typists (A sunset industry). Now that computers are widespread, Pinyin is the dominant entry system. Non keyboard systems are simply dismissed as impractical.

Why are you bringing up Emoji and Voice? Your argument was about the takeover of Pen input. Are you moving the goalposts after that turned out to be nonsense?

Pen will not be niche because of STEM. For all those preaching that the future classroom is going to be IT-based and paperless, they must acknowledge that there is a serious place for pen computing there. Anyone whom did college level engineering will know that even trying to type a second order algebra equation on a keyboard is a serious PIA and a waste of time, and if you want your students to show all the steps of solving the equation, that becomes a huge amount of wasted of time that the school would rather you do more drills and practice questions.

Asian countries in particular is heavily STEM (especially mathematics) focused, combined with the writing system pen computing is going to be quite essential. It also doesn't stop some entrepreneuring individual to code together some computer based hanzi/kanji training and make little kids practice writing them on a pen base tablet, which for very traditional focused Eastern Asian countries could even mean compulsory classes and (some good money to be made by some IT vendors pushing equipment into schools). Those studies which only focuses on language input speed is missing the bigger picture, probably because it is often written by people that are so disconnected from school curriculum such that they can't even do simple mental mathematics in their head in everyday situations and is hunched over the keyboard typing out articles to submit.

Pen will not be niche because of STEM. For all those preaching that the future classroom is going to be IT-based and paperless, they must acknowledge that there is a serious place for pen computing there. .

Or you know, that everything isn't going to be paperless. The paperless revolution really never gained as much traction as people thought.

They haven't gone paperless preciously because the majority of the classes is better done with a pen.

Maths? See above. Science? Drawing graphs and pictures requires a pen, writing a chemical equation is faster with a pen. Showing Newton's law in a picture is better with a pen. Geography? asking a kid to sketch the border of a country is going to need a pen. Economics? A demand and supply curve is faster sketched out with a pen. etc. If you want to go electronic and paperless in education then you NEED that electronic pen to go with it, one goes with the other. That's why throwing a laptop with only a keyboard input only, or even an iPad with a clumsy capactive stub doesn't cause the electronic revolution those people at the top thought of when it comes to modernising the education system, and met with so much resistance by the teachers because it doesn't make their job easier but MUCH harder. The current tools and solution isn't good enough because of the lack of a good pen input (and matching software), which is the major block of going paperless.

They haven't gone paperless preciously because the majority of the classes is better done with a pen.

It's about more than just classes.

Things aren't going paperless as some expected, because people like Paper. Even for pure consumption. Ebook sales are falling and paper book sales are rising.

I think you are looking at it wrong. It's not that people actually like paper, it'st that they like the convenience of a physical book which the ebook doesn't solve. You bought an ebook and want to share it with a friend or family member? Not easy unless they are in the same lockdown ecosystem. You are at the airport and is just killing time? You get a book. Airline security says you can't use a tablet? No problem with the book. Found a book when browsing the store? Oh wait there's no ebook version. What to read a book on your tablet? Oh wait better hope it's charged. etc The only advantage of an ebook over a physical book currently is that you can instantly buy it anywhere with an internet connection, and you can carry A LOT of books on a single device, but that's about it. It's just an alternative, but an inferior one at that. Hence the lack of adaptation.

It's the same thing with current paperless solutions, it's not actually better than the thing it is suppose to replace, least of which is that what people actually do on paper (scribble, drawing, signing on them, highlighting text etc) is best done with a pen, not on a keyboard, and current computing devices are simply not capable of doing it (both hardware and software).

They haven't gone paperless preciously because the majority of the classes is better done with a pen.

It's about more than just classes.

Things aren't going paperless as some expected, because people like Paper. Even for pure consumption. Ebook sales are falling and paper book sales are rising.

This last bit is incorrect.

Ebook sales are only flat if you discount independent publishers, which now account for over half the sales of ebooks. And paper book sales are only up if you count the sales of adult coloring books, which many people believe are a fad.

Paper isn't going away, but it's not quite as healthy as some would have you believe.

They haven't gone paperless preciously because the majority of the classes is better done with a pen.

It's about more than just classes.

Things aren't going paperless as some expected, because people like Paper. Even for pure consumption. Ebook sales are falling and paper book sales are rising.

This last bit is incorrect.

Ebook sales are only flat if you discount independent publishers, which now account for over half the sales of ebooks. And paper book sales are only up if you count the sales of adult coloring books, which many people believe are a fad.

Paper isn't going away, but it's not quite as healthy as some would have you believe.

And sales doesn't count piracy nor digital lending libraries. It took a while after ebook readers were introduced for a vibrant ebook piracy scene to devolop, but it's certainly here now. And during the initial surge in e-readers, the early software for lending them was terrible. It's still not a great user experience but it's getting better and my wife takes ebooks out of the library at a much greater rate than she ever did when she had to physically go to the library.

All of which is to say that I'm not sure "sales" is a great proxy for the popularity of reading books on devices.

Keyboarding is, let's face it, a skill. And not a greatly relevant skill in the next world hegemon, China, nor for the snapchatting rugrats nipping at our heels. So I have no doubt that traditional laptops will decline and pen computing make an amazing comeback...

That is absurdity to the point of comedy. The pen replacing the keyboard?

The keyboard has never been more relevant than it is today. Kids today don't even know how to write cursive. Penmanship is an anachronistic term.

While a lot of keyboarding happens on 5" touchscreens, it dominates the written word like never before.

The Pen is just too slow to be used for significant textual entry in modern times and there is ZERO reason that will ever reverse in favor of the anachronistic pen. Only something like direct brain interface could replace keyboarding, as that will be faster/easier.

But the slow and messy text by pen is already dead, the keyboard is long past winning.

Pens on computers are a niche item, they will only ever be a niche item. Primarily aimed at art, not text entry.

These things change. I'd be happy to be wrong, but you can't explain away the number of people in asia and the difficulty of typing up asian alphabets. You can't explain away the popularity of emoji, which isn't exactly keyboard based, and you're bringing up points that the ruling, moneyed class would make, because that's your experience. There's very little reason for most of humanity to worry about fast text entry and lots of reason they still use voice and increasingly video chat.

You are wrong. So you must be happy.

Kids in Mainland China learn Pinyin starting in primary school. It is by far the dominant way they enter information into computers in China (other Asian jurisdictions have similar phonetic based systems). I have linked studies and reports from China, that show this is so much the case, that the current generation of young people is actually losing the ability to properly write the traditional Chinese alphabet. There is nothing for me to "explain away". You based your entire argument on your faulty assumption about how things are done, not on how things are actually done. Faulty assumptions equal meaningless conclusion. Checkout the information on Mainstream and non Mainstream methods:https://books.google.ca/books?id=l-P0_8 ... mainstream

When computers were rare the dominant entry system was a typing system based on Stroke/Form/Ideographic input. But this required a lot of training, so relegated to professional typists (A sunset industry). Now that computers are widespread, Pinyin is the dominant entry system. Non keyboard systems are simply dismissed as impractical.

Why are you bringing up Emoji and Voice? Your argument was about the takeover of Pen input. Are you moving the goalposts after that turned out to be nonsense?

Hey, I'm wrong, ok. And I don't include emoji as keyboard input fwiw. It's pictogram based, just like, you know, certain cultures that I evidently misunderstood based on past device sales and thinkpieces, etc. Thank you for straightening this out and I'll be down a new rabbit hole on the internet today.

They haven't gone paperless preciously because the majority of the classes is better done with a pen.

It's about more than just classes.

Things aren't going paperless as some expected, because people like Paper. Even for pure consumption. Ebook sales are falling and paper book sales are rising.

This last bit is incorrect.

Ebook sales are only flat if you discount independent publishers, which now account for over half the sales of ebooks. And paper book sales are only up if you count the sales of adult coloring books, which many people believe are a fad.

Paper isn't going away, but it's not quite as healthy as some would have you believe.

And sales doesn't count piracy nor digital lending libraries. It took a while after ebook readers were introduced for a vibrant ebook piracy scene to devolop, but it's certainly here now. And during the initial surge in e-readers, the early software for lending them was terrible. It's still not a great user experience but it's getting better and my wife takes ebooks out of the library at a much greater rate than she ever did when she had to physically go to the library.

All of which is to say that I'm not sure "sales" is a great proxy for the popularity of reading books on devices.

I wonder if the two biggies for digital lending, Overdrive and Amazon, keep number son just how many are lent out.